7 ms·

Care to elaborate?

gambler 6y ago
Can you give me a single example of deepfakes being used to stage a real news event? Meanwhile, most of the population isn't even trained to recognize when videos are trimmed to start and stop at a conspicuously convenient moments, which is the most commonly used technique for creating fake narratives. Actual media literacy is at near zero, especially among the people who arrogantly consider themselves "informed".
- nsnow70 6y ago
  Just to clarify, I'm not really picking a side but just was curious on your thoughts being explained further. Only thing I have to add is just because it's not a problem right this instant doesn't necessarily mean it can't be a problem in the future, right?
  - vkou 6y ago
    This argument is going in circles, though. Plain-old-media has been used, to great success, to manufacture news. Consider, nearly a decade ago, the BBC (And that's an outfit that many believe to have journalistic integrity) airing video footage of a protest in India, with people waving Indian flags, and claiming it to be video footage of anti-Ghadaffi protests in Libya, in the run-up to the Libya bombing campaigns. Millions of people have seen it, a few of them noticed that they are being fed a line of horseshit, and then they shrug their shoulders and go on with their day, because Gell-Mann amnesia is probably a real effect, and they didn't actually care too deeply about this. Worrying about deepfakes is a lot like worrying, around the invention of scissors that they could be used to stab people. Yes, they can be, but knives have been around for a lot longer, are easier to make, and work just as well. Going through the trouble of deepfakes, to convince the subset of people that will not be convinced by plain-old-multimedia-lies, but will be convinced by deepfake-multimedia-lies seems like a poor ROI maneuver - especially given that we live in a world where the number of people that can be convinced by plain-old-multimedia-lies is sufficient to achieve whatever end you seek.
- quantified 6y ago
  The concern is over what will happen in the first few instances, assuming it hasn’t happened yet. We don’t need deepfakes when Colin Powell can just say that something untrue is true and we go to a long and expensive war. A deepfake video in a tweet at the 11th hour could tilt an election. At an earlier time, could be a more convincing swift-boating. A spear-phished deepfake could be really valuable in the ransom industry. Deepfake police vest-camera recordings could be very pernicious. Suppose there was plausibly a camera on in Jeffery Epstein’s cell? I’d say it’s something to be highly concerned about, but like an earthquake you don’t know where and when to actually be concerned about it.
- jimmySixDOF 6y ago
  > Can you give me a single example... This suggests you may not have done the research to support your viewpoint with such self assurance. The increasing sophistication of Deepfakes as a technology concept applied over time is what people are rightly afraid of today. But even now : (based on some search notes I have from 6 months ago) [1] Video of Gabon’s long-unseen president Ali Bongo, who was believed in poor health or already dead, was decried as a deepfake by his political opponents and cited as the trigger, a week later, for an unsuccessful coup by the Gabonese military. [2] Malaysia: Is the political aide viral sex video confession real or a Deepfake? [3] ISIS 'preparing clip of al-Baghdadi ALIVE' using deepfake propaganda. "An important goal may be to try and rally the ISIS supporters and 'show' that the US is lying" [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/12/top-ai-researchers-race-detect-deepfake-videos-we-are-outgunned/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/12/top-ai-... [2] https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/06/12/is-the-political-aide-viral-sex-video-confession-real-or-a-deepfake/1761422 https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/06/12/is-the-po... [3] https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/al-baghdadi-still-alive-deepfake-20841470 https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/al-baghdadi-stil...
owenmarshall 6y ago
I can't speak for OP, but consider: the very strong scientific consensus is that the earth is warming and that warming is caused by human activity; the best-case study I've seen showed 75% consensus among Americans and that's sharply up over previous years. The gap between scientific consensus and common belief has been driven by "regular" misinformation campaigns: promotions of conspiracy theories, manufactured doubt, cherry-picking of claims. Why worry about the novel when the basics are still working?
- throwanem 6y ago
  "Deepfakes aren't a problem because climate change is a conspiracy theory" is a pretty wild swerve.
  - owenmarshall 6y ago
    Also a pretty wild misreading ;) Try: "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because regular misinformation campaigns are still wildly successful." I might go as far as to say: "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because we live in a post-factual society, so evidence doesn't really matter."
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because regular misinformation campaigns are still wildly successful." > I might go as far as to say: "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because we live in a post-factual society, so evidence doesn't really matter." Deepfakes are concerning because they point to a future where disinformation is so effective that it's impossible to pierce a disinformation bubble and unreasonably difficult for a sensible person to avoid getting pulled into one. Take the idea that the moon landings are a hoax. It relies on accepting the idea of a rather unbelievable and expensive (for the 60s) amount of fakery. Sure, people believe it anyway, but they have to try pretty hard. They wouldn't have to try so hard if someone had faked a convincing body of evidence that the landings were faked. Or they'd have to throw up their hands and give up if they understood how easily things could be faked with modern technology.
hnuser123456 6y ago
It's a lot easier to fool people than generating fake video. Fake video detection is not far behind generation, if at all, and if any official person/department gets caught showing a fake video, they won't be trusted again. To my knowledge, this hasn't happened yet, thought I'm sure it will eventually.
Goronmon 6y ago
One example I could give right now is the US where mask-wearing has become a partisan issue. You don't need a deepfake video of some scientists claiming masks are useless/evil/deadly. You just need to label masks as some kind of "liberal" hoax and half the country now hates mask-wearing. If that's all it takes to influence the population why are deepfakes a large concern?
- mc32 6y ago
  Foreword: I believe masks help. It doesn’t help that leading Health organizations have changed their point of view over time. It also doesn’t help that mask manufacturers place a disclaimer regarding effectiveness of the masks. That and very few people wear them right —which decreases their effectiveness such that they might as well be a good luck charm. Hygiene, distancing, minimizing contact time as well as wearing a mask and goggles help. But a mask by itself is of limited effectiveness though not useless.
  - clairity 6y ago
    masks also give people who suspect they are sick, but are not sure, a license to go out in public, potentially spreading infection. instead, let's have assurance of basic care and necessities (pandemic welfare) for anyone even suspected of being sick or with elevated risk, and those folks would happily stay home. masks are a good backup to appropriate distancing, but not a good primary or always-on mitigation, because of their many failure modes, not the least of which is the enormous variety of human behavior.
    - vkou 6y ago
      No, they don't. More specifically, people who need to go out in public, because they need to: 1. Work for a living, and don't get sick days. 2. Can't get/afford <whatever it is they need delivered to them>. 3. Think COVID is a hoax. 4. Don't give a shit. Are going to do that, regardless of whether or not they have masks. The only people changing their behaviour because masks exist are employers, who think it is safe to sardine-can people in their workspaces, because everyone's wearing masks. (Never mind that so many people are wearing them incorrectly...)
mc32 6y ago
Probably means that orgs pushing that line of thought are looking to cement themselves as _the_ disseminators of what is and what is not.

Care to elaborate?

Can you give me a single example of deepfakes being used to stage a real news event? Meanwhile, most of the population isn't even trained to recognize when videos are trimmed to start and stop at a conspicuously convenient moments, which is the most commonly used technique for creating fake narratives. Actual media literacy is at near zero, especially among the people who arrogantly consider themselves "informed".

nsnow70 6y ago
Just to clarify, I'm not really picking a side but just was curious on your thoughts being explained further. Only thing I have to add is just because it's not a problem right this instant doesn't necessarily mean it can't be a problem in the future, right?
- vkou 6y ago
  This argument is going in circles, though. Plain-old-media has been used, to great success, to manufacture news. Consider, nearly a decade ago, the BBC (And that's an outfit that many believe to have journalistic integrity) airing video footage of a protest in India, with people waving Indian flags, and claiming it to be video footage of anti-Ghadaffi protests in Libya, in the run-up to the Libya bombing campaigns. Millions of people have seen it, a few of them noticed that they are being fed a line of horseshit, and then they shrug their shoulders and go on with their day, because Gell-Mann amnesia is probably a real effect, and they didn't actually care too deeply about this. Worrying about deepfakes is a lot like worrying, around the invention of scissors that they could be used to stab people. Yes, they can be, but knives have been around for a lot longer, are easier to make, and work just as well. Going through the trouble of deepfakes, to convince the subset of people that will not be convinced by plain-old-multimedia-lies, but will be convinced by deepfake-multimedia-lies seems like a poor ROI maneuver - especially given that we live in a world where the number of people that can be convinced by plain-old-multimedia-lies is sufficient to achieve whatever end you seek.
quantified 6y ago
The concern is over what will happen in the first few instances, assuming it hasn’t happened yet. We don’t need deepfakes when Colin Powell can just say that something untrue is true and we go to a long and expensive war. A deepfake video in a tweet at the 11th hour could tilt an election. At an earlier time, could be a more convincing swift-boating. A spear-phished deepfake could be really valuable in the ransom industry. Deepfake police vest-camera recordings could be very pernicious. Suppose there was plausibly a camera on in Jeffery Epstein’s cell? I’d say it’s something to be highly concerned about, but like an earthquake you don’t know where and when to actually be concerned about it.
jimmySixDOF 6y ago
> Can you give me a single example... This suggests you may not have done the research to support your viewpoint with such self assurance. The increasing sophistication of Deepfakes as a technology concept applied over time is what people are rightly afraid of today. But even now : (based on some search notes I have from 6 months ago) [1] Video of Gabon’s long-unseen president Ali Bongo, who was believed in poor health or already dead, was decried as a deepfake by his political opponents and cited as the trigger, a week later, for an unsuccessful coup by the Gabonese military. [2] Malaysia: Is the political aide viral sex video confession real or a Deepfake? [3] ISIS 'preparing clip of al-Baghdadi ALIVE' using deepfake propaganda. "An important goal may be to try and rally the ISIS supporters and 'show' that the US is lying" [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/12/top-ai-researchers-race-detect-deepfake-videos-we-are-outgunned/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/12/top-ai-... [2] https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/06/12/is-the-political-aide-viral-sex-video-confession-real-or-a-deepfake/1761422 https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/06/12/is-the-po... [3] https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/al-baghdadi-still-alive-deepfake-20841470 https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/al-baghdadi-stil...

owenmarshall 6y ago

I can't speak for OP, but consider: the very strong scientific consensus is that the earth is warming and that warming is caused by human activity; the best-case study I've seen showed 75% consensus among Americans and that's sharply up over previous years. The gap between scientific consensus and common belief has been driven by "regular" misinformation campaigns: promotions of conspiracy theories, manufactured doubt, cherry-picking of claims. Why worry about the novel when the basics are still working?

throwanem 6y ago
"Deepfakes aren't a problem because climate change is a conspiracy theory" is a pretty wild swerve.
- owenmarshall 6y ago
  Also a pretty wild misreading ;) Try: "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because regular misinformation campaigns are still wildly successful." I might go as far as to say: "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because we live in a post-factual society, so evidence doesn't really matter."
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because regular misinformation campaigns are still wildly successful." > I might go as far as to say: "Deepfakes aren't a huge concern because we live in a post-factual society, so evidence doesn't really matter." Deepfakes are concerning because they point to a future where disinformation is so effective that it's impossible to pierce a disinformation bubble and unreasonably difficult for a sensible person to avoid getting pulled into one. Take the idea that the moon landings are a hoax. It relies on accepting the idea of a rather unbelievable and expensive (for the 60s) amount of fakery. Sure, people believe it anyway, but they have to try pretty hard. They wouldn't have to try so hard if someone had faked a convincing body of evidence that the landings were faked. Or they'd have to throw up their hands and give up if they understood how easily things could be faked with modern technology.

hnuser123456 6y ago

It's a lot easier to fool people than generating fake video. Fake video detection is not far behind generation, if at all, and if any official person/department gets caught showing a fake video, they won't be trusted again. To my knowledge, this hasn't happened yet, thought I'm sure it will eventually.

Goronmon 6y ago

One example I could give right now is the US where mask-wearing has become a partisan issue. You don't need a deepfake video of some scientists claiming masks are useless/evil/deadly. You just need to label masks as some kind of "liberal" hoax and half the country now hates mask-wearing. If that's all it takes to influence the population why are deepfakes a large concern?

mc32 6y ago
Foreword: I believe masks help. It doesn’t help that leading Health organizations have changed their point of view over time. It also doesn’t help that mask manufacturers place a disclaimer regarding effectiveness of the masks. That and very few people wear them right —which decreases their effectiveness such that they might as well be a good luck charm. Hygiene, distancing, minimizing contact time as well as wearing a mask and goggles help. But a mask by itself is of limited effectiveness though not useless.
- clairity 6y ago
  masks also give people who suspect they are sick, but are not sure, a license to go out in public, potentially spreading infection. instead, let's have assurance of basic care and necessities (pandemic welfare) for anyone even suspected of being sick or with elevated risk, and those folks would happily stay home. masks are a good backup to appropriate distancing, but not a good primary or always-on mitigation, because of their many failure modes, not the least of which is the enormous variety of human behavior.
  - vkou 6y ago
    No, they don't. More specifically, people who need to go out in public, because they need to: 1. Work for a living, and don't get sick days. 2. Can't get/afford <whatever it is they need delivered to them>. 3. Think COVID is a hoax. 4. Don't give a shit. Are going to do that, regardless of whether or not they have masks. The only people changing their behaviour because masks exist are employers, who think it is safe to sardine-can people in their workspaces, because everyone's wearing masks. (Never mind that so many people are wearing them incorrectly...)

mc32 6y ago

Probably means that orgs pushing that line of thought are looking to cement themselves as _the_ disseminators of what is and what is not.